


hollow lies

by notavodkashot



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Unreliable Narrator, Vriska Serket/Bad Life Choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 10:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6075282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/pseuds/notavodkashot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The coin spins in the air, choices bundled up in clusters that come to fruition, and then...</p><p>[Set in the OLOH-verse, <em>do not</em> read before reading the OLOH-verse, so many wondrous spoilers for the OLOH-verse.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	hollow lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashkatom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkatom/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Our Lives On Holiday](https://archiveofourown.org/works/580357) by [ashkatom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkatom/pseuds/ashkatom). 



> I've been working on this for MONTHS, I am so sorry, it took forever. :(

The coin flips in the air.

It holds there for a moment that stretches for eons, until Zahhak opens the door, expression taunt and shoulders hastily and sloppily soldered in place. He’s breaking apart at the seems, too much raw stupid unable to handle the pressure, but that’s all within the script. You were counting on it, hell, you set him off on that path in the first place. 

The thing no one got, about you and Tavros and you and Eridan, is that you never really wanted to relive your Ancestor’s history; you wanted to do things better than she did, to not have it end in corpses and heartbreak and despair. It would have been fine, really, if only Tavros had gone along with it and didn’t fight you every step of the way. It was inevitable, after all, but he just kept pushing and pulling and driving you insane.

And Eridan… well.

The point is you learned, fucking up your fated flushed and your fated pitch, and decided to take a more… cynical approach, with your fated pale. Oh sure, Equius crooned about his green blood pet cat all the time, but you knew that disaster for what it was, from the very start. Serendipity is nothing but a sad overused movie trope for people caught on opposing sides of a war. Leijon and Zahhak have always had as much chance to last, as Captor to escape the Helm. Then again…

It really doesn’t matter, though.

You were careful, with Zahhak. You planted the seeds slowly, steadily. You let him build boundaries and walls and a sense of belonging and right and wrong. And after all it’s done, it will smash to bits and he will be lost and confused and you will be the sole anchor to keep him going. And in time, he will be yours.

Everyone’s always crooning about serendipity and fate, when it comes to romance, but if you’ve learned something, from Megido and Captor, is that serendipity is shit compared to a diamond that’s proven its worth under extreme duress. Diamonds are meant to be tough and unbreakable, after all, so you’re going to start rebuilding from there, and make sure you get the toughest and the most unbreakable of them all.

But not yet.

The coin is still in the air, Captor is putting two and two together, and it’s a deliciously layered pleasure to see their despair flow, escalating as in an echo chamber, as the true depth of the betrayal is revealed. This is going to destroy Zahhak, to the core, but that’s okay, you’ll fix him up better afterwards. And it’s nothing less Captor deserves, after all is said and done.

The coin is flipping, fate is twisting; you can’t help but grin as it begins to settle in place, at long last.

But the coin did not start there, in mid-air.

To understand how it even got into your hand, yours to flip, toss, own, you need to trace back, bit by bit, choice by choice, across a knotted branch in a tree made of irons, also on fire. You never boasted your ability to make the right choice, but given the company you endured, you still somehow managed to come out on top nonetheless. You never had the luxury of choices not crusted in three inches of blood, guts, sweat and tears. Your choices were always hard or rocky, sometimes both. You paid for each and every one of them, a sliver of your soul surgically shaved off each time you dodged a doomed roll and bought yourself another triumph.

And they hated you for it, of course they did, but what else were you supposed to do? Lie down and take it? Fall over and die?

Instead you survived and spat on their faces when they were offended about the means required.

It started in the brooding caverns, with your lusus pulling you into the light of the first night of the rest of your life. 

It started with hunger and sadness and death, little lies spiraling into larger than life productions that you weren’t quite sure you could hold up on your own but had to, anyway, because the alternative was worse.

It started with a journal and the weight of a grand, thunderous destiny crushing your shoulders when you weren’t even three.

It started with doubt and regret and fear and longing and despair, when you were three and set out to survive your fate, no matter what.

It started with Terezi Pyrope and three promises written on sand, never meant to be fulfilled, ready to set out the stage and prepare everything else.

It started with Tavros Nitram and a flare of temper after one too many rejections and refusals to yield; the sound of his spine breaking overshadowing the sound of your heart splintering, of regret and remorse and doubt, before it was swallowed by bitterness and rage.

It started with Sollux Captor, and the greatest cruelty you could muster, a single act of hatred meant to purge it all from your system and leave you cleansed and bare and ready to move on, which instead set off a spiral of never ending accusations and wallowing in the past.

It started with Equius Zahhak, feeble and nervous and never really STRONG in any way that actually mattered, seeing your flaws and wanting to fix them, witnessing in yourself a reflexion of the worst of himself and being unable to refuse you a second chance no one else would offer.

It started with Nepeta Leijon as a test of patience and resolve, to leave her untouched despite Equius’ delays and excuses and annoying complications, to accept sometimes there’s nothing to be gained from someone other than the pleasure of watching someone _else_ be the idiot to set off that bomb.

It started with Karkat Vantas and his dumbass secret and his even dumber cult; his rage and his screaming and his stupid need to pretend he cared, all of it useless posturing to hide the bone crushing naivete required to believe he had a chance in hell to pull through.

It started with Kanaya Maryam and her willingness to give you exactly what you didn’t want, and after so many disappointments and mistakes and broken hopes, your sheer refusal to take anything the easy way, to fall into the same Maryam trap that spelled out your Ancestor’s fall.

It started with Feferi Peixes and her childish authority, trying to wrap more and more chains around your neck, trying to judge you and challenge you for surviving the rules you were given, forever bitter because despair didn’t break you, it made you strong, capable, a  _ survivor _ .

It started with Gamzee Makara and facilitating a conversation with the right people at the right time, to speed up destiny, nothing else, and the gift of their founder’s Seed to buy you peace and quiet and respite from the Faithful, for just long enough to win.

It started with Eridan Ampora and an unannounced visit to his hive, because he never had the heart or the stomach to remove you from his security cred, and when you broke out the wine and offered to let bygones be bygones, he took the cup and swallowed until his throat filled up with foam and his mouth overflowed with blood, and you thought, this is fair, this is the last one, you’d have done the same if you’d had the chance, and you don’t look back when it’s all said and done.

It started with you, alone and determined and too proud to bow. The world made you into who you are, forced upon you every choice, every consequence, every ounce of hatred filling up your airsacks and making them burn. But you didn’t bend your neck meekly and took all that was sent your way, groveling for forgiveness for the sheer fucking crime of _surviving_. You took it all, and you learned. You planned, you schemed, you saw your own follies before they happened and recalibrated accordingly. 

The world kicked over your hopes and dreams, set them on fire and then pissed on the ashes, just to make a point. But you dug them out from the soot and the shit, and set out to rebuild and rebuild, no matter how many times you failed. You were stuck with a crime record because you refused to pretend you were sorry for doing what needed to be done. No one ever cared to know you, to help you, to understand why and when and how. So you take no one into account, when the reckoning comes. You’re precise and incisive and all around flawless, springing up the trap and setting up decoy after decoy, keeping your hand so close to your chest it might as well be sewed to it.

It started with Aradia Megido unconscious and at your mercy, Equius’ hands trembling and a photo tantalizingly hanging off every monitor in the room.

It started with their hypocrisy burning on the altar of your triumph, and now the coin falls, in the back of your head, filling your mouth with the hysterical glee of a revenge well fucking served.

_ “If I’m worth anything, I’m worth not letting this happen! EQ!” _

The coin falls, fate set in stone.

Your fury snaps. Like a house of cards held up precariously, it all comes crashing down in rage and disbelief. You scream and you swear, and in the depths of your soul something shatters and gives out, for good.

The die has been cast, and in the last moment, you too forgot, that Life is never fair.

**Author's Note:**

> A little something for Ash, who is the most precious creature on God's green earth, and because OLOH is delicious and I couldn't keep my filthy paws off it.
> 
> Whoops.


End file.
